


(until it happens again and again)

by Anonymous



Category: Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator
Genre: M/M, Past Relationship(s), past Joseph Christiansen/Dadsona - Freeform, past Joseph Christiansen/Robert Small - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:54:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26642527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “I’ve been thinking about the guy you were seeing after I left.”A conversation.
Relationships: Robert Small/Dadsona
Comments: 1
Kudos: 46
Collections: Anonymous





	(until it happens again and again)

**Author's Note:**

> a scene from a longer fic i'm never going to finish. context: robert went on a year-long roadtrip to Find Himself post-game. this takes place after he gets back, when he & dadsona decide to give it another shot.
> 
> cw: mention of canon-typical adultery & unhealthy relationships. really the cw is for joseph's route. cw for mention of joseph christiansen.

I watch Robert go through what I know by now is a routine: he turns the key, winds the window down a quarter of the way, fiddles with the stereo, lights up a cigarette, and takes his foot off the break before he puts his seatbelt on. We drive, he smokes, and after a while he says, “I’ve been thinking about the guy you were seeing after I left.” He must notice me flinch, because he says, “I’m not mad or anything, or jealous, or… I’ve just been wondering.” There’s a pause. “Plus, you twitch like that and change the subject whenever I bring it up. I thought maybe. You needed to, you know. Talk. About it.” He takes a long drag on his cigarette and flicks the ash out the window. Creedence Clearwater Revival is playing low on the stereo.

It takes me a while to be able to say anything at all, and when I do my mouth works without me. “Can I have a smoke?”

Robert raises his eyebrows at me, then shrugs, and offers me the packet. I take one, and use one of the several lighters scattered about the cab of the truck to light up. It tastes like my twenties.

“You have to know… I didn’t know how you felt about me. I didn’t know when you were coming back, or if you were coming back, or if you’d still want… I don’t know, whatever we had.”

“Of course,” Robert says.

“And Amanda was gone - I don’t know. It was a mistake. Being alone with him was a mistake. Fucking him was a mistake. Falling -” I falter. The guilt I feel whenever I think about Joseph settles coolly in the pit of my stomach. I have a puff of my smoke. “Falling for him was a huge fucking mistake.”

Robert’s eyes are on the road. When he notices me looking at him, he rumbles, “I wasn’t expecting you to wait for me.”

“I know,” I say. Robert says nothing, so I continue. “So like. I don’t know. When we started hanging out I honestly thought he was straight. But he kept, you know, standing too close, touching me too long… for a while I thought he was just really touchy with his friends.” I surprise myself by laughing. “Anyway. Eventually he just sort of. Made it obvious he - he wanted me.” I remember my heart thudding in my throat as Joseph sucked the cake batter from my fingers, his unflinching eye contact, how we could hear Mary laughing on the phone in the next room. The memory makes me nauseous.

“I felt sorry for him,” I say, bitterly. “He seemed so sad, like… like he was stuck in his life. Or in other people’s ideas of what his life should be.” Robert turns his head to look at me sharply, and I think he’s going to say something, but he keeps his mouth shut and turns back to the road. “And you know how I am,” I continue. “I thought I could save him.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, I mean, it’s my own damn fault. I thought… he was ready… for something more than he was ready for.”

Silence as both Robert and I smoke. It’s been a long time. I’m beginning to feel a little light headed - I remember why I picked up the habit in the first place.

I sit in the quiet and think about telling Robert he was cheating on his wife with me. That I knew he was married and I let him fuck me anyway - that I asked for it, hell, that I initiated it on more than one occasion, that I told him I loved him knowing full well that him loving me back meant hurting someone else. 

I take one last long drag on the cigarette and flick the butt out the window. Best to do it quick, like pulling off a band-aid. “He told me he was going to leave his wife for me.”

The truck swerves suddenly. Robert swears and the brakes squeal and Robert slams his fist into the steering wheel. “Fuck! That bastard! What the fuck!”

Okay. Maybe not the best idea to tell him, then. He swerves again, to the curb this time, and parks haphazardly with two wheels up on the bank.

“I’ll kill him. I’ll fucking kill him!” He throws his butt out the window and pulls a new smoke out of the packet instantly, lighting up, and shoves the car door open, slamming it behind him. “Fuck!”

I get out of the truck too. “Robert?” I try.

“Joseph  _ fucking _ Christiansen,” Robert growls, and my heart stops.

“Wh… what?”

“It was Joseph, wasn’t it?” Robert spits, so completely sure of it, and for a second I swear his eyes flash like an animal caught by headlights at night. “That asshole, that complete fucking - did he take you out on that fucking sex yacht? Did he tell you he was living on it? That it was  _ basically  _ already over?” He gets louder and louder as he speaks, until he’s yelling, face twisted and angry. I can feel my throat sticking painfully, the prickling starting behind my eyes. I think I might throw up.

“I…”

“I bet he acted like it was the first fucking time, too.”

That’s when I get it. Everything slots into place. “He… Robert, you… and Joseph?”

Robert’s standing in the middle of the road, now, facing away from me, body tense. I’m still on the grass by the side of the road. I don’t know what to do.

Then he turns to me and he says, “I swear to god, if I knew he was going to do it to you too I’d never have let him near you,” with so much conviction I can feel it in my gut, and it’s almost like I break.

“Robert,” I say, taking a faltering step towards him, and he comes to me, and throws his arms around me, and he’s shaking, and I’m all choked up, and he says, “Never would have let him touch you, never - he’s not coming near you again. I’ll rip his fucking throat out before he even looks at you again.” And the words are violent, but his voice is small, and we’re two men crying in each other’s arms on the side of the road.


End file.
